Everything Love Is

by Claire King

  Everyone along the canal did their bit. Despite Etienne’s protests I insisted that I was perfectly capable of clearing my part of the towpath, going out every morning in my old skiing salopettes to shake the nearby branches free of snow and clear the path up to the Yvonnick. From there Sabine and the kids cleared up to the Florence and Etienne and René cleared between there and the Rouge-Gorge. We all did our part clearing the path out towards the car park and the council took it from there.

  I hung my salopettes in the shower, drenched and smelling of snow until the evening, when I lit the stove. With demand surging and deliveries unreliable, my stock of wood was waning rapidly. To fend off the cold I moved around as much as possible, bundling up in hats, scarves and gloves. It made playing the piano tricky again just as my hands were improving, but for a while everything seemed manageable and strangely serene, as though I had been given the retreat I needed to think things over.

  Amandine had put me on the spot. I hadn’t expected her to take my illness so lightly. I hadn’t expected that now I’d explained how she could no longer be my client she would still want to pursue something more personal between us. Made reckless by the wine, I had given her the impression that it was possible. I hadn’t said yes exactly, but I hadn’t said no either. I had asked for some time. Amandine had acquiesced, and so the question remained open. I had agonised over it almost constantly in the days since. If she was going to come into it with open eyes, what was there to stop us? And yet … and yet she had been my client and I hadn’t fulfilled the contract. No money had changed hands, but she had invested a lot of time in our sessions. I had let her down. And even putting ethics aside, how could you go into a love affair with a clean conscience knowing that inevitably you’re going to hurt the other person? The longer I waited before contacting Amandine, the more uncertain and nervous I became. My heart and mind battled it out in the cold. I knew Amandine would have had time to rethink as well. Perhaps she had already reached the logical conclusion that there was no happy future for us.

  I went out to clear the snow at first light as usual. The night had been so cold that my clothes hadn’t dried properly from the day before and it was a miserable job. Every breath burned my lungs and after a few minutes the bone-dry winter air had wormed its way in through the fabric of my gloves, causing a stabbing pain in my fingers as the joints began to seize. Back on board in the chilly bathroom, where the windowpanes had turned to ice, I turned the tap to hot, waiting for the water to run through so I could fill the sink and bring some warmth slowly back into my throbbing hands. But no water came, nor the hollow gasping in the pipes which would have meant a water cut. I looked down at the tap in confusion. I couldn’t see what was wrong.

  I must have stood shivering in that bathroom for minutes, trying to figure it out while my fingers and toes burned with cold. Eventually I had the sense to take off my wet clothes and put on some dry ones, still trembling the whole time and rubbing my hands together in desperation. They said things like this would happen, but not so soon, not so abruptly. What was I going to do? Finally the reality of my future came into focus, everything I had glossed over in the shocked days since the riots. It wasn’t the forgetting of taps and teapots and piano keys that I feared most of course, it wasn’t the inevitable humiliation, it was the isolation. The realisation that the day would come when the faces of people I love meant nothing to me any more. I was to steadily grow more and more alone and nothing could stop that from happening. I let the despair wash over me, crouching on the floor and letting anguished sobs wrack my body.

  If it had been a few weeks earlier I would never have got so upset over a tap. We all forget things. Ridiculous things slip our minds all the time. But when memory is a symptom of the menace lurking within you then every misplaced pencil, every word just on the tip of your tongue, every little thing that in the past would have been put down to absent-mindedness becomes suspect. This is the way it would be from now on. Is this part of it?, I would think. Is this it?

  You have to pull yourself together, I told myself. Work it out. The tap. Silver. The plastic disc, half red, half blue. Left for hot, right for cold. Up for on, down for off. Don’t forget to leave it running. Don’t forget to let it drip.

  I got to my feet and inspected the sink. It was bone dry. But I always left the taps slightly open in winter, just enough for a dribble of water to flow through. If I didn’t and the temperature dropped far below freezing at night the overground pipes would fill solid with ice and in the morning there would be no water. I’d been doing it for ten years or more. It was as much a habit as brushing my teeth. My teeth. I ran my tongue over my teeth. Had I brushed them the night before?

  No. I remembered now. I had been upset. It was the golden hour, just before sunset, and Candice was bathed in its warm light. I had been at the piano trying to persuade fingers like rusty levers to generate a degree of joy in a Bach concerto when there had been a commotion outside on the canal. Voices. At any other time I would have assumed a passing boat, but that was impossible since the water was frozen solid. I had lifted my head just in time to see someone ride a bike past the window. Whoever it was was well wrapped up, a red hat pulled tight over their ears and a grey scarf covering their mouth, but their muffled cries of delight were unmistakable.

  If my piano had faced the towpath, of course there would have been nothing so extraordinary in this. But my piano faces the canal. I looked back into the room. Piano. Couch. Writing desk. Log stove. Books. Amandine’s chair. Everything was normal. And outside my window, people continued to glide across my view, perhaps a dozen or so, gliding and sliding and laughing. They were close to the boat. All around it. They were in the wrong place. Uninvited. Crowding me. Hemming me in. Their scarves were striped, students probably, and their boots heavy and urban. Black boots. A sharp lump rose in my throat, cold sweats on my skin, claustrophobia in my chest. Why were they here? This was my home. I should be safe here.

  I closed my eyes and began to play again, Satie, for calm, but I couldn’t shut them out. When I peered out from the window again some of them were dancing. Taking photos of each other on their phones in front of the boat. One of them looked in at me, ‘Don’t stop, mister!’

  They were just kids, I told myself. Out there playing, capering around on the ice, they had thrown off any pretence that they were anything else. The thought didn’t even cross their mind that the ice might be too thin. I closed the piano lid and retreated to my bedroom, where I drew the curtains, huddled under the covers and waited for them to leave. I had fallen asleep listening to their laughter as the sun had set. I had woken at first light to clear the path. I had not brushed my teeth, or left the taps on. The pipes were frozen.

  Where was my phone? My father would have something comforting to say, I thought, and my mother something wise. At least they would if I had told them the truth. I had only had the briefest of phone calls with them since I got out of hospital, and I hadn’t seen them at all, fobbing them off with a vague story of being under the weather. I didn’t know how to face them looking as I did, or what I would say. I didn’t want to lie, but how do you tell your parents you’re dying? No one ever tells you how to do these things.

  What was I thinking? I couldn’t let this happen to me, becoming so wrapped up in my own problems that I wasn’t even considering my parents. When was the last time I had called them? How were they managing in this weather? I rubbed my fingers together gently until they eased up sufficiently for me to dial their number. My mother answered.

  ‘You’re up early,’ she said. ‘How lovely to hear from you. Yes, completely snowed in, but Maud’s son, the tall one, he’s a lovely boy, he’s been around to dig us out and brought in some dry wood. No of course you can’t make it, none of the trains are running, Marie-Thérèse told us. Are you feeling any better?’

  In the background I could hear church bells. ‘You’re staying indoors, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘Keeping warm? Father too?’

  ‘Yes, yes,
of course,’ my mother told me, ‘I made a big pot of soup yesterday with potatoes and lentils and bacon. It’ll keep us going all week. Don’t worry about us. We’re just fine. I wish I could bring some over for you, I bet you’re not eating properly. And you must be freezing on that boat.’

  ‘Yes. No. I’m fine, honestly. I was just worried. Are you sure you don’t need anything? Promise to call me if you do?’

  ‘Son, we stocked up in advance. We knew the cold snap was coming; we have a radio, you know. In any case it’s nowhere near as bad as nineteen fifty-six, is it?’

  ‘I wasn’t born in fifty-six, Maman.’

  There was a short, confused silence. ‘I’m not senile, you know,’ she said, ‘I was talking to your father. I said it’s not as bad as fifty-six is it, darling?’ There was a faint voice offline. ‘The weather, darling! The cold!’ Another pause. ‘No, he agrees, nothing like as bad as fifty-six. Don’t you worry, we’ll see you after the thaw. You take care of yourself.’

  Swayed by my mother’s urgings I relented and lit a fire. I made tea with what was left in the kettle, using the biggest mug I had, and warmed myself by the stove, my hands clutched around the hot drink, lost in introspection.

  For days Jordi’s place had been packed, hot and damp and full of elbows. Locals who usually drank in town were trading city centre variety for cheap and decent proximity.

  It was pleasant enough meeting more of my neighbours, but this new sense of community had fallen at a bad time. I didn’t want to be sociable, I wanted to talk to Sophie, who was tantalisingly out of reach. I ached with disappointment every time I arrived to find the place crowded yet again and Sophie swamped.

  This night though, I arrived early enough to find her skulking around the draughts by the doorway. She grabbed me by the arm. ‘At last! I’ve been waiting for you. I was going to call you if you didn’t turn up soon.’ Her hair was tied with bright ribbons and she was looking pleased with herself. ‘Where were you last night?’ she demanded. ‘I have news!’

  ‘Me too.’ I kissed her quickly and hastened past her towards the fire. ‘Come and sit down for a minute.’

  ‘Baptiste!’ she said, following at my heels and snapping her dishcloth at me. ‘Wait!’

  Rich meaty smells drifted over from the kitchen. ‘What’s on the menu? I’m ravenous.’

  ‘No, Baptiste, listen!’

  ‘Cassoulet?’ I suggested. ‘If it were me I would have done cassoulet. Or perhaps confit duck? Is it the duck?’

  Sophie took a seat, perching on the edge of the chair to make it clear she didn’t intend to stay long. ‘Baptiste, will you shut up for a minute?’

  ‘Chasseur then?’

  ‘No, for goodness’ sake, it’s a pot-au-feu, but listen—’

  ‘Pot-au-feu? No wonder the place is half empty.’

  ‘Baptiste, don’t be insufferable, we’ve only just opened.’

  ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘I’ve got a job on the TGV as a barista.’ She beamed at me, waiting for her friend to be pleased for her. But I need you here, I thought, especially now.

  ‘Is that really what you want?’ I said.

  She looked as if she were weighing me up. ‘As I said to my mother, and as I told Jordi, I can’t stay here for the rest of my life. I’ve seen what that does to people. I’m going to take an apartment in Paris.’

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Of course, Paris. And there are strikes planned for April or May. I can’t wait.’

  ‘You’re taking a job so you can strike?’

  She raised her voice in warning: ‘Can you at least try to be happy for me?’

  ‘No, it’s great,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean that the way it came out. I’ll miss you.’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘I’ll miss you too,’ she said, ‘but this is my chance to affect my future and the future of my children.’ She threw her shoulders back. ‘They say this could be our generation’s May sixty-eight,’ she said. ‘We could change the country’s direction completely.’

  Pascale came over, setting a small plate of dried sausage and cornichons and a basket of bread on the table. ‘It’s nice to see you looking better, Baptiste,’ she said, her arm on my shoulder as she bent to kiss my cheek. ‘Haven’t you got him a drink yet, Sophie?’

  When it had become clear that managing the bar and the till alone was too much to ask of one person during the snows, Jordi had asked Pascale to pitch in with the serving of the food. Initially she had been reluctant and perfunctory, but it soon became clear that she was starting to enjoy herself, striking up conversations with the customers and even entertaining a little flirtation in situations where Sophie would have brushed it off with a scowl or a sharp wave of her finger. Rumours started that she had taken a fancy to one of the customers, fuelled by her growing attention to her appearance – every day her dark grey hair would be piled on her head slightly higher, her eyes slightly smokier, her scent following her around the room – but I suspected she was just enjoying spending more time around her husband.

  ‘Thank you. It’s my fault, I’ve been keeping Sophie talking, we haven’t had the chance to catch up in a while.’

  Jordi appeared, leaning against the kitchen door jamb, his belly restrained by his white apron, his pink face barely visible through the rough red cloud of hair. ‘Has she told you?’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘About the job?’ I said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What an idiot.’

  ‘I’m sitting just here.’ Sophie rolled her eyes.

  ‘Leaving a perfectly good job to go and spend your days serving sad sandwiches to strangers and your nights holed up in a shoebox in Paris, just to make a point.’

  ‘Not to make a point. To make things change,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Nothing will change, the fuss will be over by the summer.’

  ‘Not if we stand our ground. Haven’t you seen how angry people are?’

  Jordi shrugged. ‘We’ll see. I notice there are no riots while it’s cold outside. In the end people in rich, peacetime countries have a limited appetite for railing against the establishment. We have other things to think about. We’re too lazy. It won’t be long until we’re back to the bog-standard strikes.’ Seeming satisfied with his standpoint he turned back to the kitchen. ‘Oh, and Pascale, you’re looking radiant tonight.’ Pascale preened, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘Now get a shake on, Sophie, you’re not on strike yet. Pour the man some wine. Pot-au-feu, Baptiste?’

  Sophie smoothed her apron over her hips and over the soft curve of her stomach as she stood and swayed off around the bar like a dancer. Something had got into her. Optimism came off her in waves. I was happy for her, of course. Her life stretched before her, horizons full of promise. As she pushed through the cascade of coloured beads into the kitchen she looked back at me over her shoulder.

  ‘Hey, why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because you look so happy.’

  Sophie grinned. ‘Life’s just got pretty scary, but I have a lot to look forward to.’

  By the time she returned I had warmed up and shifted my things over to the counter. The bar was filling up and I needed as much of Sophie’s time as I could snatch, now more than ever.

  She set twin short, squat glasses on the counter in front of me, and a carafe of tap water, still cloudy, the bubbles settling and thinning. A half-full bottle of wine followed. ‘I didn’t even ask you,’ she said, ‘are you feeling any better?’

  ‘Pretty much mended.’

  ‘Good. Help yourself,’ she said.

  The cork came out with a stiff pop.

  Sophie raised her glass of violet syrup to my glass of red. ‘Let’s drink to the future then,’ she said.

  ‘What does your boyfriend think about you going away?’ I asked.

  ‘Didier’s not my boyfriend.’ Sophie frowned but didn’t look up.

  ‘He sometimes behaves as if he is,’ I said.

  ‘No, he doesn’t. Not any more.’ Having scribbled my
tab on the paper place mat, her pen now hovered uncertainly above the corner where the kingfisher should go. ‘Baptiste,’ she said, setting the pen down on the counter, ‘do you want to talk about it?’

  Words fluttered as though caged in my mind. I didn’t know which ones to set free. I didn’t know where to start. ‘Do you have friends in Paris?’ I said. I tried for a smile but it felt weak even to me.

  ‘We’ve talked enough about me,’ she said. ‘You said at the door you have news. I want to hear about you.’

  I would have to tell her eventually, but not then. I couldn’t overshadow her excitement with bad news. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ I said.

  ‘Baptiste, out with it.’

  The words chose themselves in the end. ‘Etienne was right,’ I said. ‘I’ve fallen in love.’ I took a drink of water. The words had felt dry on my tongue.

  Sophie threw her hands up in delight. ‘At last!’ She came out from behind the bar and wrapped her arms around me in a strong, swift embrace. ‘The timing couldn’t be more perfect. I’m going away and you’re in love.’

  I put my head in my hands. ‘It’s not perfect. I didn’t want to be in love. And now I am, I do’ – I swirled the wine around in the other glass, watching as it spun close to the brim and the legs descended in oily arches – ‘but it’s impossible. For the first time in my life I’m really miserable.’

  Sophie bit her bottom lip, her dark eyes glistening. ‘Nothing is impossible. The only thing standing in your way is you.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I do understand.’ She looked up at me squarely. ‘And there’s no way I’m indulging that kind of negative thinking. What are you doing in here now if you’re in love? You need to be making up for lost time. Why aren’t you getting on with actually being in love?’

  ‘Because it’s complicated.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Baptiste,’ she said. ‘Of course it’s complicated. What were you expecting, fairy tales? An ideal of love that doesn’t exist?’